Wednesday Reads: Presidential Campaign News

Good Afternoon!!

Strawberry Moon, by Christi Belcourt

The presidential campaign is really heating up now. The Democratic National Convention is next week in Chicago, but Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Waltz aren’t sitting on their hands in the meantime. Harris will give a speech on her economic policies in North Carolina on Friday.

CBS News: Kamala Harris to release her first major economic plan as a presidential candidate.

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver a speech Friday to roll out her economic portfolio in Raleigh, North Carolina, marking the first time Harris has released a major policy initiative since President Biden dropped out of the race last month.

Harris is expected to announce that she will make tackling inflation a “Day One” priority, as well as outline a plan to lower costs for middle class families, take on corporate-price gouging and an overall focus on lowering costs for Americans, according to details shared by Harris-Walz campaign officials.

According to the most recent CBS News poll, only 9% of registered voters rated the condition of the national economy as ‘very good’ with the economy and inflation ranking as the top issue of concern consistently across 2024 polls. Inflation has cooled since its peak in June 2022, but many voters are still feeling the financial strains. Prices are still 20% higher overall than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Friday’s economic policy remarks come after Harris pledged to eliminate taxes on tips and raise the minimum wage during her rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, her only two economic policy proposals so far.

“When I am president, we will continue our fight for working families including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” Harris said while speaking to rally attendees that included Nevada Culinary union members.

A Harris-Walz campaign official added that her pledge would require legislation.

More on the speech from Reuters: Harris to target price gouging in first policy speech in North Carolina.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will make her first policy-centered speech as Democratic presidential candidate on Friday, taking aim at price gouging, in a sign her whirlwind campaign could rattle big companies and corporate executives.

Harris will travel to Raleigh, in North Carolina, a state Democrats hope to flip this election, to outline her plan “to lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price-gouging,” her campaign said on Tuesday.

Harris canceled an event in North Carolina last week because of Tropical Storm Debby. Focusing her first major policy speech on the economy, and locating it in North Carolina shows how her campaign has revived Democrats’ hopes of flipping a state they have only won twice in the last half-century.

With less than three months before the Nov. 5 electionwhen she takes on Republican Donald Trump, Harris has drawn new enthusiasm and dollars to the ticket after President Joe Biden stepped aside, and seen polls swing in her favor in some states.

Her campaign sees states like Pennsylvania as a must-win, but North Carolina is more of a reach. Biden lost the state to Trump by a 1.3% margin – just 74,000 votes, but his prospects there were dim before he stepped down on July 21.

Harris’ speech will be closely watched to see how her style or substance differs from Biden, whose economic policies received low marks from voters angry about the cost of housing, medicine, groceries and gasoline.

On Saturday, Harris announced her support for eliminating taxes on tips, a position similar to Trump’s. Harris will hold a White House event with Biden on Thursday that is expected to focus on healthcare costs.

The Park, by Gustav Klimt

Biden has blamed corporate greed for still-elevated prices, accusing companies of boosting profits by shrinking portion sizes and by failing to pass on falling costs to consumers.

Big consumer goods companies have hiked prices in recent quarters, and food prices have risen 25% between 2019 and 2023.

Harris policed “corporate greed and price gouging” when she was California’s attorney general from 2011 through 2016, challenging pharmaceutical, oil, electronics and cosmetics companies, a campaign official said.

Harris “knows costs are too high and will make tackling inflation a ‘Day One’ priority,” added the official who declined to be identified speaking about the event beforehand.

Over the weekend Harris and Walz will hold a bus tour in Pennsylvania.

90.5 Pittsburgh: Harris, Walz to launch campaign bus tour in Pittsburgh this weekend.

As Democrats prepare for their national convention next week in Chicago, presidential nominee Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz will kick off a bus tour Sunday in Pittsburgh.

The Harris campaign has released few details about the event or the tour itself, but it says it will make multiple stops in Pennsylvania throughout the day. Those will include visits to canvassing kick-offs and other retail events that will set the stage for Harris and Walz formally accepting their party’s nomination in Chicago later next week.

Harris announced that Walz was her pick in a boisterous Philadelphia rally just over a week ago. The candidates will be accompanied by their spouses on the bus tour, marking the first time the two couples have made a joint campaign appearance.

The news is further proof, if any were necessary, of Pennsylvania’s crucial role in the 2024 election….

Harris has been a frequent visit to the state since before she became the party’s nominee: Including official visits made in her capacity as vice president, the bus tour will mark her eighth visit to Pennsylvania this year. And Harris clearly hopes to continue building the momentum that has energized Democrats since she replaced President Joe Biden as the party’s nominee earlier this summer.

The DNC begins on Monday and on Tuesday, Harris and Walz will hold a rally in Milwaukee.

Radiant Pines, by Mary Bea

WTMJ Milwaukee: VP Kamala Harris, Gov. Tim Walz plan Tuesday rally in Milwaukee, report says.

MILWAUKEE — Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are planning a rally in Milwaukee for next Tuesday during the Democratic National Convention, according to a report in the New York Times.

The Harris campaign is planning to speak at Fiserv Forum, though an agreement has not yet been formalized with the venue, the Times reports.

Tuesday will be Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention, which is taking place in Chicago from Monday, August 19 through Thursday, August 22.

Barack Obama is scheduled as the featured speaker in Chicago on Tuesday, the Times says, which means the Harris-Walz rally would likely take place before that.

The Times based its report on four anonymous sources who were “briefed on the discussions” regarding the Milwaukee stop.

Fiserv Forum, of course, is where former President Donald Trump accepted the GOP’s nomination for president just last month.

Uh oh. Trump will be watching in order to compare crowd sizes.

Some new on the DNC schedule from The Independent, via Yahoo News: DNC schedule: When Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and more will speak.

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) gets underway on Monday August 19 in Chicago, Illinois, with some political heavyweights slated to headline the four-day gathering.

While the DNC is first and foremost a presidential nominating convention, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are already officially on the Democratic party’s ticket after a five-day round of online voting from delegates wrapped on August 5.

The historic virtual roll call results saw Harris become the first Black woman and first Asian-American person to become the presidential nominee for a major political party, securing 99 per cent support from more than 4,500 delegates.

As many as 50,000 visitors are now expected to descend on the Steven Spielberg-coordinated convention at the Windy City’s United Center between Monday and Thursday next week, including 5,000 delegates from all 50 states and territories, plus 15,000 members of the media and tens of thousands of guests.

A broad schedule for the event has now been released.

Featured speakers will include Joe Biden, Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and more. Read all the details at the link above.

One more article on Kamala Harris’s campaign by David R. Lurie at Public Notice: Kamala Harris’s joyful realism. It’s a refreshing change from American Carnage.

The prevailing “take” on the Kamala Harris campaign is that it is “joyous about the joy,” a description that is at once obviously correct and incomplete.

It is only really possible to appreciate being joyful after one has suffered and acknowledged pain and loss. While Vice President Harris’s campaign certainly exudes joy, it is a happiness that arises from a forthright recognition of grave losses the nation suffered during and as a result of Donald Trump’s presidency, together with an abiding optimism that we are on a path toward recovery.

Only a few weeks into the rebooted presidential race, the contrast between the Harris and Trump campaigns is stark. Trump’s campaign is increasingly portrayed as dark, even dystopian, in contrast to the sunniness of Harris and Walz.

Crows, by Amano Kinihiro, 1929

Yet the description of Trump as dour is as incomplete as the account of Harris as a ray of sunshine. It misses the abiding attraction many Americans have to Trump’s reactionary vision, a vision grounded on resolute denial of essential facts regarding traumatic events the nation has suffered largely as a result of actions by Trump and his allies.

The surprising outpouring of joy that permeates the nascent Harris campaign reflects a belated recognition of the progress America has made over the past several years in overcoming the grave losses and damage to the nation’s social fabric we suffered during Trump’s presidency. It also reflects a sober but nonetheless optimistic recognition that, with sufficient effort, we can avoid going backwards….

At the outset of this presidency, Trump portrayed a fictional America consumed by chaos, disorder and “carnage,” and in dire need of a savior — him.

What followed, however, was actual chaos and carnage. Trump’s chaotic and disordered governance culminated in his administration’s nihilistic mismanagement of an historic health crisis that resulted in several million wholly avoidable deaths, while Trump’s assiduous efforts to inflame political and cultural divisions culminated in a literal attack on democracy itself after he lost the 2020 election.

Trump would have had little chance of convincing even his most fanatical fans, let alone other Americans, to return him to the White House had he acknowledged the disastrous nature of his prior term as president. Accordingly, Trump and his GOP followers have devoted the better part of the last four years to creating an elaborate and nearly entirely fictional account of his four years in office.

Trump has demanded his followers forget that he turned a public health emergency that should have brought the nation together into a vehicle for politicizing medical science and increasing social divisions, resulting in more avoidable deaths among Trump’s own Republican followers than in other communities. In recent months, Trump’s campaign even begun inviting voters to remember how much “better” things were under his watch four years ago at the chillingly chaotic height of the pandemic.

According to Trump’s alternative history, the president who culpably mismanaged the pandemic was not him, but Biden, who purportedly used the excuse of a nonexistent health emergency to transform the nation into a virtual police state.

Read the rest at Public Notice. It’s good.

Old man Trump has been forced to get off the golf course and make a speech on the economy (supposedly) in North Carolina today. The story includes some Harris news. ABC News: Trump to deliver remarks on economy as he returns to campaign trail in North Carolina.

Former President Donald Trump is set to deliver remarks on the economy in North Carolina on Wednesday as the campaign works to reset his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The election’s coming up, and the people want to hear about the economy,” Trump said during an interview with Elon Musk on X Monday, directly blaming the Biden-Harris administration for what polls show is Americans’ pessimism about the economy.

The economy has been one of the Trump campaign’s central election issues this cycle — the former president often spending a considerable amount of time discussing inflation, gas prices and the job market.

Forest Spectrum, by June Hess

“I just ask this: Are you better off now, or were you better off when I was president?” Trump said Monday night as he was wrapping up his conversation with Musk.

Last week, Trump blamed the Biden-Harris administration for the recent stock market sell-off and called it a “Kamala crash” — making unfounded claims that the downswing happened because people have “no confidence” in Harris, while experts pointed to concerns about the health of the U.S. economy and that the Federal Reserve’s long wait to cut interest rates as among key reasons for the downturn.

Though the stock market has since bounced back, Trump has seized on economic worries, claiming without evidence or elaboration that if Harris wins in November, there could be a “Great Depression” on par with that of 1929 — an unfunded attack he previously used against President Joe Biden.

On the campaign trail, Trump, even as he rails against the economy under the Biden administration, has announced sparse details on specific economic policy proposals for his possible second administration, often offering his signature “Trump tax cuts,” “Trump tariffs” and “drill, baby, drill” — a boost for the oil and gas industry — as solutions to most economic problems.

I highly doubt that Trump is capable of making a serious economic speech. Let’s see if he can avoid bringing up Hannibal Lector.

This is interesting from Newsweek: Trump Campaign Forced To Pay North Carolina City $82K in Advance for Rally.

Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign was forced to pay more than $82,000 in advance for this week’s rally in Asheville, North Carolina.

Trump is set to take the stage at Asheville’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on Wednesday after paying $82,247.60 to the city for a “last-minute” rally, according to Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR). The campaign, struggling to effectively blunt the momentum of Vice President Kamala Harris, reportedly first contacted the city about the rally on August 8.

City of Asheville spokesperson Kim Miller told BPR that $22,500 of the amount paid is a two-day rental fee for the auditorium, while “the remainder of the funds go to cover additional costs such as house support, production staff, production equipment rental, and exterior items like queue stanchions and port-a-loos.”

While the campaign paid in advance due to Asheville’s policy for short-notice bookings, Trump has a long history of failing to pay cities for billed rally fees, leaving the White House in January 2021 with at least $850,000 in unpaid rally debt. Most of the bills are still unpaid, including more than $500,000 owed to the city of El Paso, Texas….

The Trump campaign booked the smaller of two venues at the same complex in downtown Asheville for Wednesday’s rally. The Thomas Wolfe Auditorium has a capacity of just 2,431 people, while a larger arena next door that is not hosting Trump has a capacity of 7,200.

Of course Trump will claim there was a massive crowd, but it sounds like they didn’t think he could attract 7,000 people.

Bird Floral, by Jo Scott

AP: Donald Trump is going to North Carolina for an economic speech. Can he stick to a clear message?

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Donald Trump will have another opportunity Wednesday to recalibrate his presidential comeback bid, this time with a rally and speech in North Carolina that his campaign is billing as a significant economic address.

Set in a Democratic city surrounded by staunchly Republican mountain counties, the event carries both national and local implications for the former president.

Republicans are looking for Trump to focus from the scattershot arguments and attacks he has made on Vice President Kamala Harris since Democrats elevated her as their presidential nominee. Twice in the past week, Trump has fumbled such opportunities, first in an hourlong news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, then in a 2 1/2-hour conversation on the social media platform X with CEO Elon Musk.

The latest attempt comes in the state that delivered Trump his closest statewide margin of victory four years ago and that is once again expected to be a battleground in 2024. Trump won North Carolina over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 by less than 1.4 percentage points — about 74,500 votes — and he can’t afford to have the state’s 16 electoral votes shift to Democrats for the first time since Barack Obama prevailed here in 2008….

The question for the campaign is whether Trump can stick to a tight frame on the economy, especially to saddle Harris with the fallout of inflation, rather than default to his usual stemwinding and grievances. The speech comes the same day that the Labor Department reported that year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, a potential boon for Harris.

Anybody want to bet on Trump sticking to the prepared remarks?

That’s the campaign news. There’s lots happening, and the convention should be a lot of fun. Following politics is finally fun again!